by Angie Fox
“I’m so sorry,” I told her, wishing I could change it.
She sighed. “As long as there were pictures of us, as long as our story was buried in that drawer, there was a chance people would remember us,” she said, gripping the cross of her rosary. “Not anymore.”
“Is that why you posed the mannequins?” I asked.
She gave a rueful smile. “That was Molly’s way of bringing you to the house. She’s a little impulsive and she knew I wanted you there. My way was quicker.”
You couldn’t beat a phone call. “Did you also take control of my car?”
She winced. “I’m sorry about the flower bed. The second time around, I just cut your engine instead.”
“Thanks,” I said. I mean, she’d done her best. “I have to think there are other records of you and your bordello,” I assured her. “If not in the Sugarland Library, then somewhere else.” I refused to give up hope, for her or her girls.
She glanced away, over the cliff. “It was a lovely place. I owned our house and our land at a time when women just didn’t do that. Not everyone in the town liked us, but they had to respect us.”
I heard the wail of sirens from down the hill.
“What about the thefts?” I asked. “Julia was investigating a necklace, those candlesticks…”
She waved away the question. “One of the volunteers has sticky fingers. I don’t care about those things. The necklace will be with me forever; I was wearing it in my portrait, the one in the hall.”
I remembered the ghostly portrait at the end of the long row of society presidents. Mother Mary Cooper. The madame had worn her dress cut low and her raven hair in a twist. “You were stunning.”
She gazed down at her wrinkled hands. “I look much different now.” She looked back to Constance trussed up in the van. “That woman burned more than papers. She burned the last picture of me as I was.”
I’d been wrong in my initial assessment. Mother Mary wasn’t a dried-up old lady. She was a vibrant woman.
She sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a silk dress and perhaps even a feather for my hair.”
“You’re beautiful,” I told her again. “You showed yourself for me. You saved me. And you lived a full life on your own terms. That’s the kind of beauty that lasts. Not everyone can say they have that.”
She averted her eyes. “I just want to be remembered for who I am.”
“Maybe I can help,” I said before I had a chance to think on how.
“He’s here,” she said, fading away as Ellis barreled around the corner.
He’d barely shut off the engine before he was out of the car. “Verity!” He rushed to me. Vincent sat in the back of the truck with his hands behind his back.
“I’m all right,” I told him. At least I would be once we got this all sorted out. “And I know what happened.”
* * *
Marshall arrived minutes later and took Constance to the hospital and then into custody.
At the station, she confessed to the murder of Julia. She had attacked the society president under the covered bridge and broken her neck, along with her pearls.
Duranja recovered the single pearl trapped in the floorboards on the bridge. Constance had tossed the broken bracelet over the side and into the rapidly flowing creek below. It was never found.
It turned out Constance hadn’t left her prints on the pearl I’d found. If she’d played it as cool as Vincent had in the past, she might have gotten away with murder.
Constance claimed she never intended to kill Julia, that it had been a crime of passion. But I told the police about the man she’d brought to mess with Julia’s brakes.
He hadn’t been careful enough. A partial print under the car matched that of Constance’s brother, who worked at the family garage. He’d injected a chemical into the lines to lower the boiling point of the brake fluid so when they heated up on those turns, the fluid would boil and form gas pockets. That should have caused brake failure, but lucky for me it wasn’t an exact science.
When the car didn’t fail, Constance had decided to take things into her own hands.
Vincent claimed no knowledge of car tampering or his wife’s murder, and he vehemently denied having an affair with Constance.
He was arrested anyway and questioned about his role in his latest wife’s murder. But his involvement had been circumstantial at best.
Constance claimed he’d driven her in his four-wheeler to place the body at the bottom of the stairs. She claimed she couldn’t lift it on her own. But there was no proof he’d ever been there. She’d had access to the keys and to his garage. Her fingerprints were all over the vehicle, along with his. But then again, he owned the vehicle.
Without evidence against him, Vincent walked.
But the police kept the envelope I’d found.
About a week later, Ellis knocked on the door to my kitchen, and I could tell from his somber expression the news wasn’t good.
He escorted me out onto my back porch and over to the rail where the entire adventure had begun. “The envelope contained a blank receipt from a taxi company in St. Kitts, along with some sand Julia labeled. It seems she found them both in her husband’s old pants pocket. Vincent had claimed he’d never been to St. Kitts.”
The receipt proved he’d lied.
“Is it enough?” I asked.
“That he took a trip? No,” Ellis said. “We called every investigator on the list. None had spoken to her yet. Julia may have been onto something more, but we’ll never know.”
“He was probably going after the envelope on the night the alarm went off,” I said.
“He was,” Ellis said, “according to Constance, at least. Julia was the first of the society ladies to actually use the alarm. Vincent locked the house up again and ran.”
“He had a key?” I asked.
“We found one in his house,” Ellis said. “He went back with Constance that night because she had the code.”
“And the envelope.” Not that she’d given it to him. She had to have known in her heart he was up to no good.
“He’ll slip up some time,” Ellis said. “When he does, we’ll get him.”
Lucy came dashing around the apple tree and up onto the porch, like a skunky bolt of lightning.
“What’s gotten into her?” Ellis asked, reaching down to pick her up.
She pawed his arms, restless, as he stroked her on the back. “The grass is getting high back there. She must have run into Frankie.”
“How’s he doing?” Ellis asked, smiling as Lucy snorted and buried her nose in the crook of his arm.
“He’s still missing his leg,” I said, worried. “He’s not recovering like he should.”
“He needs her,” Ellis said, looking at me as if he understood the feeling.
“I want to try to get the word out about the true history of the house.” I had Melody checking local libraries, as well as the state archive for proof. “I also want to do what I can for those girls in the cemetery.” I’d told Ellis all about those lost, forgotten spirits. “But I don’t want to push it. At this rate, Frankie could disappear altogether.”
“I don’t care,” he hollered from somewhere behind the apple tree.
His hearing was uncanny.
His power settled over me, which was infinitely disturbing considering I didn’t ask for it. I saw no horse races in the yard, no Sticky Pete, no wild parties.
I gave Lucy one last stroke and then walked down by myself to talk to the gangster.
“I don’t need your power right now.”
Frankie leaned against the far side of the apple tree, his cheeks hollow, his leg missing up to his thigh, and his hat askew, exposing the round bullet hole in his forehead.
He stared straight ahead. “I don’t care. Take it. But I’m not going back to that place.”
“I have a feeling she’d be glad to see you,” I said. With Frankie, it was hard to tell. But Molly seemed to genuinely care for him. “It’s b
een an entire week.”
“It’s over,” he vowed. “I don’t need the complication.”
Yes, because Frankie was one to avoid trouble.
I opened my mouth to tell him that when a faint jazz tune floated over the yard.
Heaven, I’m in heaven.
“That’s ‘Cheek to Cheek,’” I said.
Frankie straightened his back. “That’s our song.”
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.
I clapped my hands together. “It’s coming from the front yard.”
“Don’t you dare go out there,” he said, leaping to his feet.
“What are you going to do, hide?” I asked. She was coming for him. I knew it. If he was breathing, I would have hugged him. “This is wonderful.”
“I gotta get lost in the shed,” he muttered.
“I’ll tell her you’re in there,” I vowed. “I’ll tell anyone who asks.”
Frankie swallowed hard. He was actually scared. “So what, do I just go out there?”
“Yeah,” I said, stepping out from behind the tree.
Molly floated into the backyard, with a dandelion behind her ear, looking as sweet and vulnerable as a girl could.
“This is your shot, Frankie,” I told him. But I shouldn’t have bothered. He’d already zipped past me and taken her into his arms.
And then he kissed her.
Chapter 23
So that’s how Frankie got his leg back,” I said to Ellis as we retreated toward the rose garden. As soon as he’d kissed her, he’d been made whole again.
It was truly amazing.
To Frankie’s credit, he hadn’t succumbed to any big public displays of affection. He’d simply lifted Molly into his arms like a bride on her wedding night and retired to the shed.
And then he’d taken his power back, as if I’d wanted to see what came next.
“You should rename it the love shack,” Ellis teased, placing a struggling Lucy down on the grass. She darted under the porch.
“Frankie didn’t even bother opening the door,” I said. “He went straight through the wall.”
“I know how he feels,” Ellis said, drawing me in for a kiss. “When you find the right girl, you don’t want to waste any time.”
After a suitable interlude, we strolled past my Cadillac parked in its usual spot, and I couldn’t help but run a hand along the fresh paint job. Now that I’d found justice for Julia, I hadn’t felt bad about returning to the hidden drawer in the wardrobe and withdrawing the envelope she’d given me.
It had contained several thousand dollars in cash, more money than I’d ever seen, up close, in my life. I made sure to honor her gift, and my work, by using it wisely.
“The Cadillac looks great,” Ellis said, admiring the repaired door handle, the new paint job, and the complete interior detailing. “I can’t believe you kept it avocado green.”
Truth be told, I couldn’t imagine it any other way. I’d retained the original velvet seats as well. They’d just been thoroughly cleaned and repaired. Same for the fabric on the roof.
“New doesn’t necessarily mean better,” I mused. I had a lot of fond memories of this car. And now that the engine had been restored, it would serve me well for years to come. Unless Mother Mary decided to fiddle with it again.
“Tell me you at least ordered power steering,” Ellis said, checking out the white trim on the new wheels.
“Power steering is for sissies,” I teased. I had plenty of oomph to steer my car. Besides, I’d had other plans for the rest of the money.
We walked out to the front yard, where I’d bought and planted four small rows of peach trees, sixteen saplings in all.
It was a start.
“I’d be glad to help next time,” Ellis said, taking my hand. “I wield a mean shovel.”
“I appreciate the offer,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze, “but this was something I had to do on my own.” I had a picture in my mind of where each tree needed to be planted, where it should be.
“Melody thinks I’m crazy, planting trees when I could be shopping for cute shoes or a kitchen table. But that’s just stuff. This is my heritage.” My land. The best way to honor my family’s history was to take care of what we had left.
“Your grandmother would be proud,” Ellis said, wrapping an arm around me.
She would be. And maybe even my great-grandmother, too—the notorious Ida Jane. With any luck, I’d meet her someday.
Lucy darted out from the backyard, straight for the start of my peach orchard. She dashed in and out of the leafy young trees, like it was a grand adventure.
I was just about to call her over when Frankie hit me with a tingling shot of power.
Ellis jumped. “You feel that?” he asked as I nearly doubled over from the prickling energy racing over my skin and sinking deep into my body.
“Frankie’s feeling better,” I managed, through gritted teeth. I’d made it clear I needed his power to see if I could do right by Mother Mary and her girls, but he could have warned me first.
“Lucy sure hasn’t noticed him,” Ellis said, watching her roll in the grass.
“Oh, I doubt he’s coming out of that shed anytime soon,” I said, recovering. “We’re on our own if we want to set this right.”
“I’m game,” he said, digging for his keys, “but only if it involves an old madame, her brother the Father, a bodiless prostitute, and a creepy old cemetery.”
“That and a ride in the new and improved land yacht,” I said, steering him back toward my car. “Oh, and Henrietta appears as more than her head now,” I added, by way of conversation. Not that he could see her, but I did want the good officer to have all the facts.
* * *
The old Cadillac did me proud as we drove out past the start of the peach orchard and down the long driveway toward Rural Route 7.
“Duranja and Marshall searched Constance’s house,” Ellis said. “They found the missing candlesticks. My mom identified them. Evidently, Mom keeps society records at her house as well. She showed photographic proof.”
“Go Virginia.” I think. I still didn’t like the idea that she had so many files on so many things. Or how she’d gotten away with removing those files from the library.
Shortly after Melody had reported the theft to her boss, Virginia had surprised the library director with a generous donation. Her transgression was forgiven, with the caveat that Melody or another librarian “personally assist” Virginia the next time she researched in the Sugarland Library.
“I know you’re not a fan of my mom,” Ellis said, glancing at me, “but those records she kept on the society house proved your missing items, and prompted Constance to confess.” He shook his head. “Constance said she needed the candlesticks and the doorknobs to renovate her house—historic preservation and all.”
“By dismantling history.”
“She didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“Julia did.”
He nodded. “So she did.”
“Did she say anything about the necklace?”
“She found it in an old steamer trunk in the basement and figured it was meant to be hers.”
“I don’t think Mother Mary Cooper would agree.” We’d place the necklace in the museum, with a special note describing its owner.
We passed Southern Spirits and drove a ways more before turning left into Mother Mary’s place.
Luxury cars crowded the parking lot. The flower bed had been repaired and replanted, and I spotted Virginia Wydell getting out of her cream-colored Cadillac. Naturally the only spot left in the lot was the one on her left. Ellis waved to her and a secret part of me hoped she’d snub us and walk inside.
No such luck.
She waited until I parked next to her and slipped out of the car.
Ellis closed the passenger-side door. “Heck of a crowd you have today.”
Virginia tucked her white clutch purse under her arm, her back ramrod straight under her t
ailored pink suit. “We’re electing a new president,” she announced. “It won’t be me,” she added, with a sharp glance in my direction.
News of Constance’s actions on Virginia’s behalf had made it into the paper. It wasn’t my fault necessarily, but I suppose I had been the one to bring everything out into the open. “Did you see the article about Mother Mary’s bordello?” I asked.
“Yes,” she seethed.
“The truth will set you free,” I said. Perhaps now the society could change. According to Kelli, they’d received more than a dozen applications from young, unconnected women in town who were interested in preserving Sugarland history in its true form. This could be the start of something big.
In any case, I’d decided to stay and lend a hand. It wasn’t Ellis’s grand coup, but it had the rumblings of a revolution.
Virginia looked me up and down warily, as if she sensed it coming. “You did good by the way of Vincent,” she said, grudgingly.
It hadn’t made a difference. “He’ll walk.”
She nodded. “We’ll get him.” She looked to Ellis. “Men like that need to be stopped.”
“My, my, my,” Kelli called, picking her way through the lot on heels so high they brought her closer to Jesus.
The wrinkles around Virginia’s thin lips deepened as the young blonde inserted herself between us. “Verity Long, I’m so glad you’ve accepted a post on the museum reorganization committee. I can’t wait to see what you do to educate the schoolkids on the new house history.”
“It’ll be G rated, I guarantee it.” We’d talk about strong women, and an especially brave one who decided to take on the world on her own terms.
I glanced to Ellis, who grinned, and to his mother, who had gone a bit green.
“Your grandma would be proud,” he said.
I smiled. “I hope so.”
After all, Grandma had been part of this group way back when, and she’d never backed down from a challenge.
“I also have this for you,” I said, handing Virginia her key.
“The meeting will be starting soon,” Virginia said, as if she wished she could lock me outside.